FooEngine is a UK-based video media logistics company focusing on media processing for the entertainment industry. Founded in April 2020, Ben Smith, Arran Corbett, and Craig Russill-Roy saw a gap in the market to offer a fully cloud-based Media Processing platform for content owners and streaming platforms.
With decades of post production, broadcast, and cloud development experience, Smith, Corbett and Russill-Roy had a clear goal: to create a scalable, simplistic, and cost-effective platform that allows customers to store, process, and deliver media with metadata to many destinations.
The Challenge
Operating in a fully cloud-based environment means that all operations are conducted via a web browser. Therefore, in order to carry out any compliance checks or reviews on an asset, there were two options available to FooEngine.
Spin up a cloud instance with an NLE installed, attach that to an AWS FSx file server and then still have to download the asset(s) from S3 to the file server before viewing it. There is then also the consideration of having to scale the NLE infrastructure/licensing to accommodate multiple operators.
Or, transcode everything to a proxy format to playback via a HTML 5 player in a browser. This option is very cumbersome when it comes to multitrack/multi language, and side car audio assets.
Neither of these options fit the business model of FooEngine which was at risk due to the length of time it could take to complete compliance checks. FooEngine needed a method to instantly play and QC large, master quality media files regardless of where they were located.
The Solution
To have instant access to master quality media, FooEngine chose Telestream GLIM, a remote media player that enables media professionals to play full resolution, mezzanine grade media files directly from their centralised storage over the internet from a web browser. The company employs a five user GLIM license subscription, which was first deployed a year ago. GLIM is installed within a private subnet that can only be accessed via operators that have VPN access. As different clients’ assets can have different security requirements, the utilisation of the user groups feature within GLIM allows FooEngine to control access by only granting the minimum privileges required.
“Prior to introducing Telestream GLIM into our workflow, asset compliance checks were taking far too long, putting our client’s projects at risk. GLIM provides our operators the ability to simply navigate to an asset, click it and review it without delay,” says Craig Russill-Roy, chief operating officer
Media files are loaded into S3 storage and then reviewed in GLIM for compliance checks. Having immediate access to content, without need for proxies or downloads, allows FooEngine to detect file problems at an early stage, allowing them an opportunity to correct files before expending efforts on processing and delivery.
Checking audio is a key feature in the process and having a visual representation of metering in GLIM allows the detection of missing channels, incorrect channel layouts and more importantly lip-sync errors. Being able to load multi sidecar caption and audio files against a video asset, means that QC’ing the increasingly common componentised package deliveries is now a breeze for FooEngine.
Results
“Our business runs on tight margins and even tighter timescales. Telestream GLIM gives us the ability to keep all our assets in the cloud and view them with minimal latency from clicking to playing. The benefit of GLIM can be summed up in one word- immediacy!” explains Russill-Roy.
GLIM not only reduced FooEngine’s overall infrastructure and processing costs, but it also greatly improved the speed and efficiency of their operations. “The ability to play and check any media file in almost any format in a matter of minutes was a game changer for us,” he adds. “New features that have been added since the first release, such as Channel Mapping and Captions Display, have enabled us to identify many technical problems in client files, and therefore to deal with them before expending valuable computing resources.”
“GLIM enables us to be a true cloud native company” concludes Russill-Roy.
